You're listening to Catholic Sprouts, the daily podcast for Catholic kids that strives to plant seeds of faith.

Hey there, sprouts. Today is Thursday, March 17th, 2020. And as you might know, today is the Feast of St. Patrick, or St. Patrick's Day. Now, this week we're talking about the sin of envy, but we're going to pause today and hear the biography of St. Patrick because St. Patrick offers us some great examples of how if we let go

of our own pride, if we really do acknowledge that everything I have, everything I accomplished

is just simply to give more glory to God than incredible things

are possible. So St. Patrick was born in England, and he was born in 385. So this is right

around the time when Christianity was no longer a crime. Christians weren't being killed in the Coliseum anymore.

And instead, the Holy Roman Empire was promoting Christianity. But he lived in England. He was born

into a Christian family. Unfortunately, when he was young, when he was 16, he was captured by Irish pirates.

He was taken back to Ireland, and he was forced to be a slave.

At the time, Christianity has not come to Ireland yet.

They were pagans.

They worshipped all sorts of scary and weird gods, had a whole bunch of pagan practices. So he was there as a slave

for many years. Finally, he had this dream. And while he was there as a slave, he really deepened

his faith. His suffering brought him very close to the heart of Jesus. Eventually, he had this

dream. It directed him to a boat. He snuck away,

got on the boat, and actually made it back home to England. So he got back, reunited with his family.

He felt a calling to the priesthood. So he trained. He was ordained. He actually went onto the continent

and studied with some other great saints in Europe. But all this time,

he felt a calling to go back to Ireland. Now, don't take for granted how hard it must have been for

him to listen and obey this calling. He had been a slave there. He knew that they had these dangerous and really scary religious

practices. He knew he was just one person going there and they had some fierce, you know,

tribal kings and stuff that he would be going up against. And yet he went. He obeyed. He said, I know that God is

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